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As the struggling Conservative party convenes in its conference city for its annual party conference, it has a lot to reflect on regarding its path forward. It’s not even clear if a clear direction remains open. These are challenging circumstances for a governing group that now has very little, if anything, new or unique to say to the electorate.

An Alternate Reality

The situation might have been so different if concrete steps had been made on an priority that matters to people nationwide: Equal opportunity. Yet the former leadership did not possess the first clue on how to turn the popular slogan on social mobility into actual implementation. Over twenty-four months after the general election, it debated what the concept even meant.

I was perplexed, because I’d already told Johnson what social mobility signified when we initially discussed about it during the contest for party leader. The expression was a concept I originated and used at the DfE to talk about social mobility. This became our core mission, and its definition is straightforward: social mobility is the approach by which we achieve fair chances – not by taking opportunity away from those who are already advantaged, but rather by expanding options to those that don’t.

Essential Principle

An additional vital education department term we used, “ability is distributed uniformly throughout the nation, but opportunity is not”, represented another a intentional wording, representing the two parts of a fairness agenda. First, potential shared equally but not developed consistently through our education system. Additionally, opportunities not spread evenly by businesses or our market. Thus, schools and companies were key to achieving improved equality of opportunity. This represented an priority about the societal structure of our country – fostering individual capabilities and providing access to chances.

The Actual Outcome

How did levelling up turn into under the Tory administration? Local investment schemes managed by the DLUHC. Decorative floral displays and redeveloped traffic systems. A white paper was published a significant period after the leadership change, which saw ongoing initiatives relabelled under the new levelling up banner.

Consequently, a broader social mobility agenda went ignored, as well as all the reform that it might have driven – in funding, business, fiscal strategy, taxation and in local regeneration. Moreover, in schooling, including a university system that has become a punchbag for politicians of all stripes – even though it remains the strongest driver of social mobility for young working-class people, including myself, this country has had over the past 30 years. Maybe the primary source of social mobility, working extensively.

The Role of Ambition

Ambition is essential for our country to prosper. For people to have aspiration, there needs to be a credible sense that effort and reward are related; that if people aspire, they can achieve. For any government, being able to instil a feeling of hope about the years ahead is important. Studies by the research body at Bath University and others, published last month, showed that the ministry’s focus zones I launched while in office – community-focused methods to enhancing learning results – led to students in those areas being up to nearly one-fifth more hopeful about their future than those in equivalent locations without these initiatives in place. The research confirms: just making an sincere effort on equal chance initiatives can swiftly and beneficially change how people feel about their destiny.

Lost Potential

Oblivious to this, and in the midst of its successor selection process, in autumn 2022, the Tory administration ended the initiatives. Why should any person in those areas vote for a party that made that decision? The targeted programme is one example of what might have become a game-changing administration strategy on social mobility, but that possibility was hopelessly squandered. Approaches such as this can create belief and drive. Conversely, as the Conservatives learned, failing to deliver of social mobility is the most expensive error any government can make. The public held accountable the leadership for its incompetence but, perhaps most of all, for its broken promises on social mobility.

Today’s Political Reality

Currently the baton on life chances and fair access has passed to a opposition party. The previous terminology has been discarded. The new government has its own policy language of “eliminating hurdles to advancement”. The party that is increasingly displacing the failing Conservative party, the alternative party, also has its own terminology – “economic renewal”. This expression to talk about additional chances in communities like the one I was raised in, in my hometown. It claims that an former economic strength can revive into an industrial future.

For the public, it must appear as a Groundhog Day-style loop. Same issue, different language. However, so far, no progress.

Lessons for the Future

Whether the government and opposition want to escape the similar destiny, both these parties should learn from the Tories’ mistakes on social mobility; that equal opportunity talk is easy to say, but effective implementation of more equal results is far more challenging. Britain’s chronically poor social mobility remains the primary challenge for our country, with young people unable to get a decent career start, those laboring in employment with little to show after the housing costs are covered, and people across the country without any real hope their next generation will be able to do any better in life than they have.

Leaders can discuss improved access repeatedly. Yet where is the party that has the comprehensive policy agenda on equal opportunity? None appear to exist. The first to achieve this, succeeds. Not just for their party, but, significantly, for a complete society that has desperately requires equal access so badly.